Chapter 8 Bud Extracts as New Phytochemical Source for Herbal Preparations — Quality Control and Standardization by Analytical Fingerprint D. Donno, G.L. Beccaro, A.K. Cerutti, M.G. Mellano and G. Bounous Additional information is available at the end of the chapter http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/59759 1. Introduction 1.1. General, economic, and social notes 1.1.1. Historical background of the gemmotherapy method The use of buds for therapeutic purposes dates back many centuries. Ancient Indian medicine (Ayurveda) used, and still uses, plant buds for therapeutic purposes. In Western Europe, Galen (second century A.D.) prepared Acopon, one of the most renowned vulnerary balsams of that time, by soaking poplar buds in olive oil for three months. Nicolas De Myrepse, a medieval Greek physician, revived this idea and formulated the famous “Unguentum Populeum.” Buds and sprouts were identified with the persistence of the life cycle, which renewed itself each spring [1, 2]. Paracelsus realized that the different parts of a single plant had distinct properties [3]. In ancient times, physicians, botanists, and naturalists were interested in defining plants and their derivative properties. According to Theophrastus, herb quality was dependent on a series of factors, including plant age, collection method, used plant part, and geographical origin, as well as preparation methods and storage conditions of the final extracts. In the first century AD, Plinio il Vecchio warned his readers about the herbal preparation quality in relation to possible substitutes, pollutants, deterioration due to age, pests, or inadequate storage. Two centuries later, Galen emphasized the importance of distinguishing good quality products on the basis of sensory tests, drug potency, and geographical origin. During the Renaissance, © 2015 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 188 Phytochemicals - Isolation, Characterisation and Role in Human Health scientists and scholars also performed medicinal plant quality control through studies and experiments on fresh plants. Safety, quality, and efficacy, therefore, have always been the key factors distinguishing a therapeutic plant-based product, and over time they have become increasingly complex and important criteria. Pol Henry was the first researcher who systematically studied bud-preparations. He is therefore considered to be the true “founding father” of gemmotherapy in its current form. He was the first to have the idea of using extracts derived from meristematic tissues rather than adult plant parts for human therapy and proposed a therapeutic method based on analogical protocols. He conducted a series of clinical trials on humans and animals to establish the psychopharmacological effects of, initially, some twenty or so gemmotherapy remedies. The results of his initial works were published in the “Archives Homeopathiques de Normandie” in 1959. Since then, many scientific publications have confirmed the validity of this therapeutic method [8, 9]. Gemmotherapy is a therapeutic method belonging to the field of Biotherapy, which, based on the analogical–biochemical principles of biological drainage, uses hydroglyceroalcoholic solutions of macerated fresh plant extracts in the first decimal dilution for therapeutic purposes [1, 6]. These extracts consist of meristematic tissues, such as buds, sprouts, young stems, rootlets, catkins, the inner root cortex, the young branch cortex, sap, seeds, and other meris‐ tematic plant tissues in the growth phase [10]. To express the concept at a taxonomic level, it would be more correct to describe the method as “meristemotherapy,” since the used plant tissues are of meristematic origin. Gemmotherapy/meristemotherapy is therefore a medical method that uses extracts of fresh plant tissues in the growth phase. Sprouts, buds, and other meristematic plant tissues retain all the anabolic faculties of the primitive plant cell, which is capable of developing all the potential no longer found in the adult plant. This therapeutic plant medicine belongs to “renewed phytotherapy,” a branch of the biotherapeutic medicines classed between allopathic medicine and homeopathy. It was relatively unknown until a few years ago, but it is now growing considerably, in Italy and elsewhere [13]. The reason for this popularity lies in the fact that bud-preparations are easy to administer: they are sold ready-for-use and simply need to be diluted in water. 1.1.2. New interest and current diffusion of phytotherapy Phytotherapy has thus developed from knowledge that was handed down over the course of millennia and has been confirmed, modified, or disproved through many pharmacological studies and clinical trials (Figure 1). It has therefore become a fully fledged medical discipline, since the knowledge gleaned from folk medicine has since been subjected to methodical scientific assessment in order to provide evidence of its efficacy [1, 15]. Progressively deteriorating environmental quality, pollution, excessive reliance on technolo‐ gy, continuous innovation of products and synthetic drugs perceived as alien to the organism, the indiscriminate use of many chemicals, and the change in the concept of health, which is no longer seen merely as the absence of disease but as a general sense of well-being, have Bud Extracts as New Phytochemical Source for Herbal Preparations — Quality Control and Standardization... 189 http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/59759 Figure 1. Methods for pharmacological validation of the popular use of medicinal plants [12]. driven “modern people” to “return to nature.” The use of phytotherapy has considerably increased in recent years, thanks to important studies confirming the medicinal properties of plant extracts and the continuous growth in scientific knowledge of their positive effects on humans and animals. However, the use of plants for therapeutic purposes should be assessed by both the treating physician as well as the patient; the bioactive substances found in plants and their derivatives can also cause unwanted side effects, allergic reactions, or interactions with other plants or medicines [17]. For some diseases, moreover, no “miracle plants” are currently available, and so official medicine is the only option. They can, however, replace or complement synthetic drugs for several functional and somatic disorders. For example, many laxatives, painkillers, and tranquilizers can be replaced by a milder treatment based on medicinal plants [18]. The recent ISTAT multipurpose survey “Health conditions and the use of health services,” conducted in 2005, has a section on the use of nonconventional therapies, which are also referred to as alternative, complementary, or traditional (at times ambiguously). The survey was carried out on a sample of approximately 60,000 households and showed that 13.9% of 190 Phytochemicals - Isolation, Characterisation and Role in Human Health the Italian population (7.9 million) used nonconventional medicine during the three years preceding the survey, particularly homeopathy (7%), manual therapies (6.4%), and phyto‐ therapy (3.7%). There was also a clear prevalence in the north of the country (North-east Italy 21.9%, North-west Italy 17.9%, Central Italy 13.6%, Southern Italy 5.4% and the Italian islands 7%). The users were mostly women (15.8% compared to 11.2% of men) between thirty-five and forty-four years of age. The inclination to use nonconventional treatment methods increases with the level of educa‐ tion: 18.7% of people with a degree or diploma, 13.5% of people with a middle-school diploma, and 9.2% of those with primary school certificates use these methods. Executives, entrepre‐ neurs, professionals, and office workers, in particular, most often used alternative therapies during the period covered by the survey [19]. According to the ISTAT survey, 71.3% of the patients stated that they chose nonconventional medicine because they considered it less toxic than conventional medical treatments. General public opinion regarding UMs remained divided. However, 48.8% considered them to be effective and 51.2% regarded them as useless. Men were found to be more critical than women in regard to the usefulness of these methods. Most (73.5%) of the people interviewed in 2005 combined both homeopathy and phytotherapy with standard medicines. Specifically, 44.2% of them tried homeopathy and phytotherapy but mainly relied on conventional medical therapies, whereas 29.3% stated that they had combined conventional medical treatments with alternative therapies, relying mainly on the latter; 17% of the questioned people used homeo‐ pathy and phytotherapy exclusively, without combining them with other conventional medical treatments. More recently, Eurispes indicated that 14.5% of Italians used nonconventional medicines in 2011, a decrease of 4% from 2010. Homeopathy remains the preferred therapy (70.6%), followed by phytotherapy (39.2%), osteopathy (21.5%), acupuncture (21%), and chiropractic (17.2%). There is a greater tendency toward regular use of alternative therapies in other European countries: 49% and 46% of the population in France and Germany, respectively, used it regularly, along with 35%, 31%, and 25% of the population in the United Kingdom, Belgium, and the countries of Northern Europe, respectively [20].